3rd Grade Curriculum Night

I got the low down on the educational plan for Sheela and her cohorts tonight. It sounds like a fun program. They put their primary focus on critical thinking and reading skills and are working on algebra without telling them. I'm pleased with all of this.

They've started a school-wide bully-free school policy that I whole heartily endorse. They test drove it last semester with the 3rd grade class and have now rolled it out K-6th. They actually spend time with each child teaching them how to recognize the three types of bullies: physical, emotional and social and how not to give them power. This is also a love and logic concept and its impact is huge.

Sheela hasn't said much about her teacher this year. I like her but she isn't nearly as powerful a presence as Ms. DeWaters. Sheela still goes to Mrs DW's room every day after school to help her out.

How could I not be proud? (or not)

Sunil's teacher had to write to me today. Sunil attempted to smuggle a toy car out of her class room for his personal collection. One of his classmates turned him in.

He's pretty tired of talking about it by now. I had a go with him and then Sid got to do it again when he came home. Of course Ms. Barr got to go through him with it first.

Sunil made a card for Ms. Barr that says "I'm sorry" he decorated it with a shark.

I seem to recall stealing a rag rug when I was five years old. I just knew that it would look great in my room in Oklahoma on top of my little red bedside chest. I can't remember which of Mom's relatives I took it from.... I think it was cousin George Phares from Oklahoma City. I didn't do it again.

Jr Sprint

The Plano Pacer's race club holds monthly races at a nearby park. After the main race they hold a 1K sprint for the kids 12 and under. Since the fall soccer games haven't started yet Sheela's soccer team planned to go. However the Allen Eagle's Warm-up Soccer Tournament was also scheduled for this weekend. SuperBlue didn't do the tournament because our coach was out of town. But most of Sheela's teammates play on two teams and they ended up being double booked. Sheela was the only one that showed up to run. To see how she did you'll have to go see her blog. If you don't have the link drop me an email.

The nieces....

Seema and Sunita both came to town to compete in the Texas Tornado Tae Kwon Do tournament. It was held over at Southfork Ranch. I didn't get to go but I'm hoping that Sushama took some pictures that she will share when she gets a chance. Both girls placed first in their respective age categories and won medals. I'm pretty proud of them both! Sunil got to go and watch but it wasn't enough to rev him up on the tae kwon do thing. He's finished his three-week introductory special and we are going to let it drop for now. Its too late to get in to either soccer or football for the fall season. I'm hoping I can fill in with some more swim classes, but if not we'll just get to spend some time working on bike riding.

Another handy weekend

Farhana's AC condensate line backed up and did some damage to her kitchen ceiling. She caught it before it got to be too bad but it left an unsightly stain. Saturday afternoon we scraped, textured, sealed and repainted her ceiling. Here Sid is appraising the damage.
Here Sid is showing off our clean repair. We did tear up the edges of her wallpaper pulling down the painter's tape. She insists that its okay because her next project is to pull it all down and paint the kitchen instead. That's a good news-bad news sort of thing. The paper that we pulled down came down because its a nice stripable paper that will be easy to remove. The bad news is that it was put up over a more tightly adhered paper. I suspect that layer went up on the un-primed drywall. That will be at least a weekend project for us at a future date.

After we got back home we had to change out the guts in the downstairs toilet, pull down the lower two laundry room shelves, put up a low clothing rod (in place of the shelves) and replace the shower wand in the kid's bathroom. I managed to respackle but I still have to paint behind where the shelves were and I want Sid to put the shelves back up .... above the ones that are left. I can't reach that high even on the folding ladder and I'm two lazy to pull the big ladder out of the shed.

I love this place

This is the sign for the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. They do some phenomenal work here and I'm thrilled to have such wonderful access to their orthopedic department. I spent two days here this week preparing our new product line for shipment to our dock. In the first three hours that I was there they described two modifications that they have been waiting to make (as part of a joint design effort we hope to start this Fall) and thought of a third. I love creative people (it fascinates my overly analytical, engineering side).

One of the unique things about this hospital is that it doesn't smell like a hospital. They pop popcorn in the lobby to make it smell like a movie theater or a carnival.

Start the presses

The 2007 World Book Encyclopedia can now go to press.  The solar system has officially been redefined to include only eight planets.  Pluto is now a dwarf-planet.  I'm surprised to find that I do care.  I was always bugged by the discussions back and forth whether we had nine planets or ten, then Pluto and Neptune switched places and that made even less sense to me.  I may even sleep better tonight... well, that may be stretching it but I am happy with the new definitions.  I will leave Pluto on Sheela's mobile though, for old times sake.

Children's choices

One of the basic tenets of Love and Logic parenting is that you let your kids make their own mistakes so that they can learn from them. But when the temperature reaches 106 and Sunil comes downstairs dressed like this all I can see is CPS driving Sunil away in the back of a station wagon because we are so obviously negligent.

Lake Lavon

Lake Lavon is the source of all of the treated water in the North Texas Municipal Water District. As water reduction efforts across the district aren't showing the conservation that we are looking for we may have to go to more severe restrictions.

In the meantime we took a drive out to Princeton yesterday to look at some land that is for sale. Princeton is on a peninsula that sticks down in to Lake Lavon. I took this picture of the lake as we drove across the bridge. There is still water in the lake, but Princeton is no longer on a peninsula its just plain North of the lake.

Again

Its been another hard week at work. Judy's husband passed away Tuesday morning. He was in his 50's but he'd heart trouble for some time. Judy, and her husband's sister, Linda, both work on our manufacturing line. They've been here ten years or more. Yesterday we shutdown manufacturing allow everyone to attend the funeral. Last night Theo's husband passed away. He was in his early 30's. He was watching his oldest son practice football in the 106 degree heat when he started to feel ill. He went to a friend's houe and they called paramedics. They rehydrated him and said he was fine. He went home and was ill again before he got there. His wife took him to the ER where he died. The oldest son is two years younger than Sheela. Deanna's brother passed away yesterday too. We don't know anything about that situation. This has been a rough year for the Orthofix extended family.

Competition

The point of playing a competitive sport as a child is to be to learn a number of important life lessons. Some times you win. Sometimes you lose. Either way you should do it with grace. Either way the world continues to spin. You get better if you practice. You get even better if you practice a lot. You are expected to do your best no matter how good you are... or aren't. You always treat others with respect. If you are not following the rules you aren't really playing the game. I could go on and on. The gist of it is that I'm really glad that Sheela is playing Academy ball... but I'm feeling really petty for being so proud that Sheela made the team when most of her friend's got cut. I was thrilled to find that their were so many girls from her school on the team, but we ended up three players short of being able to field two teams so they had to cut ten girls from the team including ALL of the other girls from her school.

Reunion Pics

Here Sunil and Samantha spend some time together.

Sid and the kids after cooling each other off on the bumper boats.
Our whole River Rat crew after our first float down the river.


Sheela, Seema, Katie, Grandpa and Samantha are across the back. Sam, Grandma, Sunil and Sunitha are in front. Rachel was at home testing for her black belt in tae kwon do.
Renee, me, Daddy, Shashi, Ravi and Brian are in the back. Sudhir, Mommy, Sushama are in the front and Lee was at home taking care of her father (who came through his surgery easily).

A rainy day....

Saturday we enjoyed a wonderful, gray, overcast day with actual drizzle. We delayed our morning ride by two hours but the drizzle didn't let up so we went anyway. As it was a weekend we didn't have to stick to our normal path around the park. We ventured out to Northeast Allen to see what we could find. Mostly new construction for half-million dollar homes, but mixed in with the lot was an exotic bird breeder: White swans, Black swans, dozens of exotic ducks and at least one annoying rooster. The rooster reminded me of our house in Winston-Salem. We left the sidewalks for just a few feet but got nice and muddy in the process. As long as we were muddy anyway we walked up close to the enclosures. The swans were beautiful but they smelled suspiciously like the elephant cage at the zoo. There was also a flock of small white birds. I initially thought that they were white egret chicks, but by the time we found chick number six, I figured I was wrong. There could have been 200 of them all told. I forgot to look them up when I got home. They had long slender necks and long legs but weren't really very tall. The were in fields but looked like they should have been wading in shallow water.

There were actual storms up at the airport with rain delays and everything but the rain never really came down in Allen. Under the trees and bushed never got wet. It stayed damp out all day and at 90 degrees it actually felt cool for a change that should count for something.

Istanbul

Dad and Eileen should be enjoying themselves in Istanbul, Turkey today. They have two more days before they begin the trip back to Florida. I can't wait for the pictures!

Black Forest Cafe

We went to dinner last night with Sid's boss, Hudson and Hudson's girlfriend, Kim. They took us to a really nice German restaurant in Dallas. Their aren't too many German places around here. In addition to the good food and the accordian player we were entertained by a Bavarian Culture/Dance group celebrating a three year-old's birthday. The men in the group (and three year-old Ethan) were all wearing leiderhosen, most of the women were wearing Bavarian dresses. It was a very good time.

Nearly Complete

The upstairs renovation is nearly done. We are putting a stackable washer and dryer in the master bathroom (in the shower enclosure). So we put a shower in over the garden tub and enclosed it with glass blocks. Here are a couple of pictures.... The glass wall is my favorite part. The only major change left to be made is to replace the scuzzy-old window with glass blocks. The tile is a good match to what we already have on the floor. The other thing left to be done is to hide the new tile behind a glass door... and of course take delivery of the washer/dryer combo.

Puzzlehand

I made a puzzle just for you
At school on my very first day
It's made with love and my handprint
In a very special way.

Now you can sit down on the floor
With your favorite Kindergarten kid
We'll put it together while I tell you about
All the fun things we did!

Anderson Elementary School
August 7, 2006

Tae-kwon-do

Sunil's tae-kwon-do class started tonight. He's still in the three-week-cheapie-low-introduction-fee stage. After that it gets down right pricey. But I like the program and he seems to like it too. So we'll see how it goes.

M-I-L Update

I pleased to be able to tell that Sid's Mom's recovery is cranking on along.  She can stand up for a few minutes at a time (without holding on).  This allowed her to make pancakes for us (her pancakes are really good!)  She'a also been walking around outside and in the house (with her walker) --  this is more liberating than the wheelchair.  She has started to practice low steps.  Her goal is to be able to get around easily before she leaves for India in November.

A big day at the office

Orthofix Buys Blackstone Medical

This will put our annual revenue between $520 and $600 million a year. Our Spine business is expected to post revenues of $260 million, which would make us the sixth largest spine company in the world. We still aren't in the top 10 Orthopedic Companies, but we are working on it.

Now is they could just tell us who they've choosen to be our new president....

Kindergarten - Day 1

Here Sunil and Sahil are waiting in the cafetorium for their first day of school. You can tell that they are in the same class by the color of their spirit-wear. They made rather a point of not talking to each other during the 20 minuets that they sat side-by-side. The Kindergarteners, as a group, were noticably more subdued than the older kids. The chaos was made worse by us over-emotional parents. Not only do we all feel compelled to take those all important first day pictures but the set up a whole "cry breakfast" in the multipurpose room. The multipurpose room is the room where the kindergarteners are supposed to gather before the classroom doors are opened in the morning. This morning they all had to get redirected so that they wouldn't mess up the tableclothes and flower arrangements.

Mini-pies

Sheela and Lisa decided to make us a special treat for dessert tonight. They made us each a mini chocolate pie. They cut out circles of crust for each of the ramikins. After they cooked and cooled they poured chocolate pudding on top. Then we added whipped cream and orange sprinkles. Yummy!

Bike Riding - Lesson One

Sunil's training wheels have finally come off of his bike. He's only about halfway on board with learning to ride (and that half is because Travis just learned to ride without his). We've resorted to the age old tactic of bribery. When he learns to ride alone he gets a new shiny bell to attach to the handlebars. It would help if it weren't already 90 degrees when we wake up in the morning. Sid is trying to run along side him and they are both sweating into puddles.

Meet the Teacher Night 2006

Tonight's the night. Sheela, Lisa and Anelise have Ms. Morton (soon to be Mrs. Ponce) for their third grade teacher. Sunil begins with Mrs. Barr. Both are rumored to be the nicest teacher in their respective grades. I'm hoping Sunil will know at least one person in his class already, but his circle isn't too large yet. We get to go to meet the teachers (and read the names on the class lists) tonight before zipping Sheela back off to another soccer practice.

Town and Country

Roughly halfway through our 1800 mile roadtrip the new van gave out. We had to jump start the van to get out of Mom's driveway. Sure we could have left something turned on for the two days we left it in their garage or maybe Mom just tampered with it to keep us from taking the kids back away.... hmmmm. In either case, the van, once running, didn't give us anymore trouble at least not that day. Two days later we got to jump it again. We also got to jump it at a gas station in Arkansas, and thought we'd have to a few other times when the battery was weak but it pulled through at the last minute.

We stopped at Auto Zone on the way home for a free diagnostic check. According to their certified technician the battery, the alternator and the starter are fine. Monday morning the van starts up with no problem and I take it to the dealer. They called later to tell me that a wire was loose but its all fixed up now.

Tuesday night the car doesn't start again. Wednesday morning was another close call, but I did get it going and get it over to the dealer (again). It doesn't start when they try it (at least now they believe me) and they've decided that it's the battery. The car has 35,909 miles on it. The battery has a three year or 36,000 mile warranty on it. I don't actually think the problem is the battery, but I'll take the new battery anyway. I'm sure I'll be up there again in a few days. Luckily its walking distance from my office. I say luckily because there was a 45 minute wait for the courtesy shuttle today. I was at my desk in less than 10 minutes.